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The Story of ‘Midnight Blue’: Sex, Lies, and Videotape – Podcast 76

Imagine this. It’s one night in New York in 1974. You’ve partied with friends. You stumble home at midnight, turn on the TV and flop onto the couch. On screen is channel 35. This isn’t the Partridge Family or the Rockford Files. Did you really drink that much?

This was Midnight Blue, a one-hour, regular TV show that aired on Manhattan Cable. And it was like nothing you’d seen before. It was a cross between a late-night chat show, a surreal variety review, and a bad acid trip.

You might see interviews with characters like Debbie Harry, O.J. Simpson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, back-stage location reports from strip clubs or brothels, and conversations with adult film stars like Marilyn Chambers, Seka, or Harry Reems.

And interspersed between the features were bizarre advertisements for swingers clubs, prostitutes, phone sex lines, synthetic cocaine, and sex toys.

So how did a show like this come to exist? And how was it even allowed on the air?

There was another NYC cable show (on channel J?) in the eighties called Interludes After Midnight, hosted by a bearded guy named Mark. Could you do a piece on that show as well? Keep up the good work RR!

Epic as usual… Al Goldstein was the King of Porn in New York.. For many years… His rants.. interviews.. Cable TV Show and articles.. Got him plenty of press back in the day.. So in the honor of Mr Al Goldstein.. Once more as I pick up a copy of his legendary Screw Magazine… Lets all repeat… Screw You… As Al would always say!

Midnight interlude was like an infomercial to sell ads for escorts. The host, who probably also produced and sold the ads, was called Daniel j. Even as an 11 year old who at the time got wood during the opening scene of petticoat junction when the sisters popped up in the water tank, I could see thru the guy as a phony. The show was all naked people , supposedly swingers, and oozed no sexuality . Robyn Byrd show on the other hand…

It’s great to see The Rialto Report finally catching up to covering Midnight Blue(from its humble beginnings to its sad end),for a lot of informative facts about the show and it surprised me that Alex Bennett,who I familiarly know as a San Francisco(/San Francisco Bay Area) radio personality,worked on Midnight Blue as both a producer and an on-air personality. His New York connection also explains his rivalry with Howard Stern,a man who Alex openly despises.

Another late night cable tv show I remember from early 90s was “Voyeur vision”. There would be a non nude model performing phone sex for men calling on the phone. As was the case with Midnight Blue, the commercials would consist of 900 numbers, escort services etc.

With the advancement in technology today, its so funny to look back and see, by comparison, how dated this stuff has become lol

For me what I like about your work, is that “adult film” is just the departure point for a broader investigation into the whole era and sub-culture. This should be part of every serious attempt to understand the post sexual revolution generations.

Local cable access shows rule! Once while visiting grammaw in Grampa Bay, Florida some hot full nudity strippers show came on that was very exciting. This was late 90s so it is probably long gone.
Al is a defiant F-U and your feelings rebel and these types of people always improve the world. Love the Melvins-I Like Porn song that is on the Screwed soundtrack.
R. Crumb has some killer comics and Jeanna Fine, so so hot! Everything was better in the golden age not just porn.
Ohh yea! A young Sharon Mitchell and Blondie aka Debby Harry. RR rocks! {:o)

The test of an interesting podcast is if you enjoyed it even if it wasn’t YOUR nostalgia. I wasn’t around in New York back then to watch Midnight Blue, and I enjoyed this immensely.

Some odds ‘n’ ends:

-Arthur Bremer was the guy who stalked Richard Nixon and ended up shooting and paralyzing George Wallace as a target of opportunity. In his diary which he kept during his stalking (later published as AN ASSASSIN’S DIARY), he mentioned buying a copy of Screw and going to a massage parlor advertised in it. (The experience was not a good one.)

-I remember a short parody of Midnight Blue on Saturday Night Live with none other than Al Franken playing Al Goldstein.

-The hypocrisy of the anti-porn crusaders is legendary, but it never seems to be remembered. Wally George was a mess in his personal life with six ex-wives. His estranged daughter Rebecca De Mornay (whom he should have been proud of for her acting accomplishments) said he had committed bigamy. This was not a guy who should have been wagging his finger at anyone else and telling them the right path to be on!